Hunger was the second transformation. Klaus crawled through the snow, away from the chapel ruins, away from the tomb of his human death. Every sensory input was a fresh assault. Moonlight, weak and grey, stabbed his eyes like shards of glass. Wind sighing through the skeletal pines roared like a cascading avalanche in his ears. The scent of frozen sap from a wounded birch half a mile away was cloying, nauseatingly sweet, overwhelming. But worst was the void – a howling emptiness deep in his gut, coiling up into his throat, a desert wind demanding liquid fire. Need… Warmth… Life… Blood. The knowledge was instinct, deeper than thought, imprinted during the venom's sculpting fire. Warm. Living. Blood.
He moved with jerky, unfamiliar motions. His body felt alien. A prison of marble and ice. Hard. Unyielding. The cold that radiated from him was absolute; snow didn't melt where it touched his skin, merely rested, its intricate structure a distinct, icy pressure. He raised a hand – his hand, yet not. Skin flawless, pale as the moon-washed snow, the familiar jagged ridge of the scar through his left eyebrow – a Weimar-era brawl souvenir – was gone. Smoothed away. Erased. Fear, colder than the surrounding winter, coiled in his gut. What did that thing make me?
A new scent sliced through the olfactory storm: Copper. Salt. Adrenal terror. Human. Female. Young. Close. It cut through the cacophony like a beacon. The void roared its approval.
He followed it, drawn inexorably. Trees blurred past. Snow didn't crunch under his stolen jackboots; he seemed to glide, barely disturbing the surface. He found her near a great oak split by lightning, half-buried in a drift – a child, maybe eight years old. Huddled under a man's vast, threadbare coat. Dark curls escaped a frayed woolen hat. Eyes huge, liquid brown, wide with the pure, primal terror of a cornered animal. She hugged her knees, shivering violently, her small frame radiating waves of palpable fear.
Her heartbeat was a hummingbird trapped against his eardrums. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-THUMP. Loud. Insistent. Tempting. Warmth radiated from her fragile form. The scent of her fear was sharp, metallic, intoxicating.
Untermensch. The Party's poison surfaced automatically, reflexively. Vermin. Less than human.
A jarring flash erupted behind his eyes, triggered by her whimper: A grimy Berlin street in Wedding. The warm, buttery light spilling from Herr Feinberg's tailor shop window. The old man's kind eyes, weary but gentle. A thick slice of dense rye bread, still warm from some hidden oven, smeared with a precious layer of golden honey. Wrapped carefully in a scrap of blue-and-white checked cloth. Pressed into his twelve-year-old hand. Leah's small smile, hesitant but real, her own cheeks hollow with hunger. The memory was vivid, visceral, drenched in a warmth utterly alien to his new, icy reality. A stolen moment of kindness in a childhood defined by Vater's hate and empty bellies.
The child scrambled backward, sensing his presence, her fear intensifying. The void screamed. His mouth flooded with thick, coppery saliva. His jaw ached, teeth feeling unnaturally dense, the edges pressing against his lips and tongue with a newfound, lethal sharpness. He could almost taste the warmth just beneath the thin skin of her neck. One step. One lunge. Ecstasy. Silence.
Coward.
The Kristallnacht accusation lashed him, sharp as the SA man's whip: Shattered glass raining down. Herr Feinberg dragged into the street, blood on his temple. Leah thrown to the cobbles. Her eyes finding his across the chaos – not pleading, but accusing. His own hand, holding the heavy carpenter's hammer he'd grabbed 'for protection', hanging useless, leaden, at his side. Jürgen's sneer. "Come on, Klaus! Show your spirit!" The shame was a physical weight, colder than the void.
"G-g-eh…" The sound grated from his throat, unfamiliar, harsh, like tombstones grinding together. He pointed a trembling stone hand towards the deepest, most impenetrable part of the skeletal pines. "Schnell. Lauf. Versteck dich." Go. Fast. Run. Hide.
Confusion flickered, then desperate, disbelieving hope flooded her pinched face. She scrambled up, the oversized coat tangling her thin legs. She stumbled, fell, scrambled up again, casting one last frantic glance over her shoulder. Shock in those dark eyes, mirroring his own internal chaos. Not gratitude. Not fear anymore. Just… stunned disbelief. Then she vanished into the grey-white gloom, a small, dark blot swallowed by the trees and falling snow.
Silence crashed down, heavier and more accusing than before. The void howled, denied. The thirst became a physical agony, a clawed beast ripping at his insides, demanding payment for his mercy. He slumped against the lightning-split oak, marble skin scraping on frozen bark he couldn't feel. He was alone with the monster he'd become, and the ghosts of the coward he'd been. He understood nothing. Only hunger. Only guilt. Only the terrifying, alien power thrumming in his stone limbs.